Friday, March 09, 2012

Pre - wedding accommodation... time to go looking

Yesterday I managed to rope in my sister in law to be to come looking at five and 4 star hotels in Sydney's CBD for us girls to get ready in and also for the boy's but either in a different hotel or a different level of the same hotel. Man what a mission this was ... I cannot believe how expensive parking in Sydney is for an hour to two hours. It ranged from $29 to $54 an hour. After a few backing out of the parking lots because it was too expensive, we eventually found a metered park in The Rocks, that wasn't a loading zone and parked there and did the walking.

Before we found our park we started off at Fraser Suites in Kent Street. This place was one of the first places that I had wanted to look at because it looked rather gorgeous on the website. My research has all been done through wotif.com.au, I just picked the names of the hotels and then went and visited them yesterday. So the Fraser Suites were gorgeous and I fell in love with the lobby and the room. We had a look at the One Bedroom deluxe which was stunning. I'll show a mixture of my photos and the sites photos, so you can get a better idea of why I love it!

This is the open plan view of the deluxe 1 bedroom apartment

Bedroom (my photo)

Mirrored area of lobby (my photo)

The very cool Chandelier in the lobby

So I pretty much fell in love with this place and it set very high standards for the next places that we went to look at.

We also visited:

The Sebel, Albion Street: Very tiny not very well light rooms with a so so foyer.

Quay West Suites, The Rocks: Beautiful view but decor and room not worth the $700 odd a night.

Amora Jamison, Jamison Street, CBD: Lovely but quite bland rooms. Have a great canapés and drinks package if you book a Jamison Club room though. Very tempting but the photos would of been very boring!

The Shangri La - gorgeous rooms, pity my favourite room was $699 a night, see the photos below of it, it was just jaw dropping and had its very own spa bath in the powder room, and the bathroom windows over looked the harbour bridge. Just beautiful!

Shangri La Bedroom with views (my photo)

The amazing shangri la bathroom (my photo)

Shangri La lounge in the room (my photo)

I was rather impressed with the Shangri La but just could not rationale the cost of the beautiful rooms to myself when the Lobby of the Shangri La wasn't that great. I kept comparing it to the Fraser Suites and they still kept coming up on tops.

Another beautiful hotel we visited in The Rocks, was the Harbour Rocks Hotel. It had the most amazing foyer but the downside was that it had heaps of stairs and only a baggage lift. I'm not good on stairs at the best of times. Combine that with heels and a big dress. Not happening! But have a look at the foyer photo. Just stunning!

So cute! I could imagine some great photos here (my photo)

I called Fraser Suites back the next day and asked Wendy, the manager who showed me around the hotel, about late check out on the day of our wedding. She said they could guarantee it if we paid half the room's price and were checked out by 3pm. I thought that would be perfect as our ceremony starts at 2.30pm. And she gave me a quote for a standard room for the girls and a one bedroom deluxe room for me for $800 odd dollars including the late check out on the room. I asked her whether prices would change much in the next few months while I saved up for the hotel and she said that I could give her my credit card details and that would reserve the rooms without having to pay any money until the day. She also said that there was not cancellation fee up until the 19th October and I wouldn't have to pay anything if we found something better.

So i'm am pretty much sold on Fraser Suites. The hotel is perfect, its in a great place. There is parking next door and right beside it. Its near to Darling Harbour and not far to drive from the Botanic Gardens, and the train station is just around the block. So perfect!

I don't know whether to keep looking as this hotel is pretty suited to my needs..... What do you think?

2 comments:

I think you've taken all the important things into consideration with Fraser Suites. The lady Wendy sounds really nice which is important. I believe that service is important when it is your special day. We ourselves were rather disappointed with Sheraton on the Park even though the room was gorgeous, the service wasn't anything special.I agree the Shangri-la room is divine.

Yeah I think so too, don't really want to have to go looking at any more of them as it was a major mission and I did some serious walking around the place - not that that was a problem, but boy the next day.. haha. Wendy is very helpful which is nice and the reception people had great sense of humour which was cool too. So I think I will book them in and not worry bout looking anymore. Thanks for your advice :)

About Me

I'm a kiwi girl at heart living in Sydney with my husband and cat Bella. Just newly wed and looking forward to a life full of fun, projects, good food and home renos and new recipies and babies if we are lucky!